Description
Minotaur’s handmade black pendant. The most famous labyrinth is in Greek mythology in the story of Theseus, the prince of Athens.
Daedalus designed this labyrinth for King Minos of Knossos on Crete to confine the ferocious Minotaur, a half-man/half-bull creature. Minos prayed to Poseidon for a snow-white bull as a symbol of the god’s blessing on his cause.
Poseidon, enraged by this ingratitude, caused Minos’ wife Pasiphae to fall in love with the bull and mate with it. The creature she gave birth to was the Minotaur which fed on human flesh and could not be controlled. Minos then had the architect Daedalus create a labyrinth that would hold the monster.
In another famous tale from Greek mythology, Daedalus and Icarus escape their prison. They used the feathers of birds bound together by wax to form wings with which they fly from the tower. Icarus flew too close to the sun, melting the wax of his wings, and fell into the sea.
Theseus, son of King Aegeus, vowed to put an end to his people’s suffering.
He told his father that, should he be successful, he would change the sails to white on the trip home.
Once on Crete, Theseus attracted the attention of Mino’s daughter Ariadne who fell in love with him and secretly gave him a sword and a ball of twine. She told him to attach the thread after he had killed the Minotaur, he would then be able to follow it back to freedom.
Theseus kills the monster, saves the youths who are sent with him, and escapes from Crete with Ariadne but abandons her on the island of Naxos. In his haste to reach Athens afterward, he forgets to change the sails on the tribute ship from black to white and Aegeus, seeing the black sails returning, flings himself into the sea and dies; Theseus then succeeds him.
Minotaur’s handmade black pendant
